1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the siding and roofing art, and in particular to improvements in interlocking shingle arrangements which simulate the appearance of conventional shingles, such as cedar shakes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional shingles, including those made of wood, concrete/asbestos, clay, asphalt, and metal have not been found to be satisfactory in all respects. The small size of individual conventional shingles makes covering a wall or roof time-consuming, as well as expensive due to the large amount of labor required. In addition, such shingles suffer variously from other shortcomings such as attack by microorganisms, necessity for periodic painting, flammability, lack of impact resistance, excess weight, and lack of resistance to wind damage.
There have been some attempts in the prior art to overcome the problems of the time and labor expense required to install individual shingles through the provision of large panels which simulate the appearance of a plurality of shingles in a single piece. None of these attempts have been completely successful, for various reasons. In some cases the large panels were too heavy and unwieldy to be easily handled by one person, thus partially defeating the purpose of minimizing labor cost.
Another of the problems with prior art shingles, both individual shingles and multi-shingle panels, has been the lack of a satisfactory interlocking device between adjacent courses. Although interlocking devices between adjacent shingles in the same course, i.e., between two shingles in side-by-side relation, have been disclosed, in general there has been no satisfactory provision for interlocking shingles in adjacent courses, i.e., between two shingles in top-to-bottom relation. This has often resulted in wind forces loosening, raising, or even removing shingles or an entire panel of shingles. In addition, some of the prior art locking devices entail the use of separate pieces or require very precise alignment during installation, thus defeating the purpose of simplifying installation and saving labor costs.